My eyes drift shut, lacking the energy to voice my protest as the scale is peeled from my wound in slow increments.
Water seeps in, its soothing warmth a pleasant balm.
I reach for her blindly, but she beats me to it, leaning forward, sealing her body to mine. Her heavy heartbeat thuds wildly against my chest as she nuzzles my neck, her breath a soothing patter on my prickling skin.
“Don’t leave me,” I whisper.
Please …
I don’t like being by myself.
I don’t want to die alone.
Her hand weaves around the back of me, settling on the left side of my body where shetaps.
Tap.
Tap.
… Tap …
I drag my fingers up and down her ribs, her silky skin a dream I want to fall into …
Oblivion sucks me under.
“Are we almost done?”
My pretty, austere handmaiden steps between me and the ornate vanity, yanking a piece of hair like a leash, twisting it around a metal rod that’s been dipped in the flaming fireplace. “You have a lot of hair, Mistress.”
Izel releases the coil, separates out another lank tendril, then back-combs it at the base of my skull until it resembles a hen’s feather—her delicate, Bahari blue stone cupla dangling with every sharp jerk of her brushing hand.
I peer at her through fluffy, gold tresses. “I like your”—yank—”cupla. It’s very pretty.”
She glances at it, speaking through tight lips as she offers a curt “Thank you.”
I bite down on my desire to release a hiss of pain as she combs with a little extra gusto. “Are you coupled? Promised?”
She looks into the mirror, nailing me with an icy stare. “Widowed. My promised was on the boat you sailed here on. He didn’t return.”
My heart drops so fast I almost vomit. “I-I’m so sorry, I had no idea …”
She throws me a tight-lipped smile, eyes void as she says, “Your words won’t bring him back.”
Any response clogs in my throat.
She continues to fluff and smooth and twist and tame, coiling tendrils around the iron like she didn’t just drop a boulder on my chest. I lower my gaze, watching my fingers twirl around the ribbon of blue silk knotted around my waist rather than my coiffed reflection as she finishes taming my heavy, corkscrew mane, then brushes out the curls. She glides toward the mannequin to retrieve my gown—similar in style to the one Cainon had fashioned for me while I was still at Castle Noir.
The one Rhordyn shredded right before tossing me his oversized shirt that swallowed me stupid.
“I can dress myself.”
She catches my stare in the mirror’s reflection, then steps toward a bucket of water beside the fire that’s stuffing the room with unnecessary heat.
“I’ll do that, too.”
A small, tight-lipped moment passes, then she curtseys and exits without another word.
The door closes, my shoulders folding forward as I exercise my lungs in a way I barely managed while she was finishing my hair.
